by J. S. Morin
"Tiiba!" Juliana shouted, not even wanting to waste the aether to shout at him via the runes. "We're losing aether. I've got to set us down somewhere. Grab hold of something."
Juliana's Safschan was shoddy, consisting largely of curse words. She understood most of the invective Tiiba shouted up at her from the hold.
They were not going to make it to the clearing, and nowhere was there a clear path to the ground that she could see. As they drifted lower, they brushed against branches, listing as the ship was unable to compensate for the drag. Snapping and crackling accompanied every step of their progress as the Starlit Marauder slowly crashed. Juliana had to duck behind the ship's wheel as one large specimen threatened to swat her free of the ship.
She searched frantically, not knowing how long she had before the ship's aether gave way entirely. She thought back to one of her first impressions of seeing the colossal oaks, and decided to attempt to land among the branches. She took what little control she still had of the ship, and steered nearer one of the trunks.
There was a crook in a branch—each fork as wide as a man's height—that looked to be their best hope. Juliana lined the ship up as best she could, and slowed the Marauder until it hovered above. With a quick prayer to Tansha, Juliana set the ship down.
They landed with a creak and a crackling of lesser branches. The ship leaned to the left, in the direction of a fall to an unplumbed depth. Juliana released breath she had not realized she had been holding. She unbuckled herself from the captain's harness, and crept over to the ship's railing. Peering over the edge was like gazing into a leafy abyss. There was no ground in sight for all the branches and greenery that spread below them.
A breeze blew, not a gale or a stiff wind, but the tree gave a gentle sway. The ship swayed along with it, and Juliana grabbed for the railing to stay her balance on the tilted deck. When the ship stopped moving once more, she scampered for the stairs to the hold.
"Tiiba, find all the rope you can," she called out to him. "We need to secure the ship."
"What if, perhaps, you renewed the ship's aether and we made our way to the clearing?" Tiiba hollered back.
Juliana rummaged through the ship's supplies, thankful that the quartermasters in Kadris could not grasp the concept that a ship with no rigging did not need to keep coils of rope by the dozen on hand for repairs.
"What is your problem, Tiiba?"
He walked in behind her, and began helping to gather the rope. "A man thinks he has passed beyond fear, until he finds a fear beyond simple preservation of his own life. If I die, there may be no one who can pass word along to Rashan about Brannis's death," Tiiba replied.
"You think he would believe you, or that it would matter whether he did?" Juliana asked.
"I think if Brannis knew the truth, we could manage to convince Rashan," Tiiba reasoned. "Kyrus could maintain the lie."
Juliana sighed, and set down the rope coils she had slung over her arm. She turned to look Tiiba in his mismatched eyes. There was a desperate earnestness there. He doesn't care about Brannis, or even himself. He's just willing to try anything to save Safschan.
"Fine. I had hoped things might work themselves out before summer came, but I can't ask you to do nothing. Just do me one favor?"
"What is that?" Tiiba asked.
"It's Brannis's age-day tomorrow, just wait until later to tell him. I don't want to ruin it for him."
* * * * * * * *
Tiiba relented and helped to secure the Starlit Marauder to the tree's branches. Neither of them were proper sailors, and the knots were shoddy, but telekinesis had allowed them to loop the ropes around the limbs and get a fair hold of them.
Tiiba followed Juliana as she went below to the heart of the ship's rune structure. She had looked over all the runes when she had first taken command, but it was a cursory inspection, more for curiosity than study. Looking in more detail, she grew skeptical that she would be able to do much with them.
"Grab hold of something. When Kyrus activated it the first time the whole ship shook, and that was just in dry dock. This could get a bit wobbly," Juliana warned.
She put her hands to the runes, and closed her eyes. She took a long, deep breath and let the aether flow into and through her, and into the Starlit Marauder. For a moment, a brief, glorious moment, it felt as if it might work. But as she progressed, she felt what seemed like an unending journey through the whole of the ship's rune structure; she could find no end in sight.
Juliana collapsed to the floor, panting. She found that she was dripping sweat, and wiped it away with a sleeve. She shook her head.
"I feared as much," Tiiba said. "We are stranded here, until Kyrus comes to find us."
"Well, we can still go check out that clearing," said Juliana. "It can't be more than a couple hours on foot."
* * * * * * * *
When Juliana had recovered her strength, she set off alone. Tiiba had offered to stay and guard the ship, presumably from owls and hawks, since little else of consequence could reach so high.
The trip down was exhilarating. Juliana trusted her own magic implicitly, having used such spells as both herself and Soria. She stepped to the ship's railing and over the edge.
Down she plummeted, angling herself to guide her fall. Several times she kicked off against a branch that threatened to interrupt her downward journey. When she finally reached the bottom, she decided that the trees must be the height of the Cloud Wall, or close to it, so far she had fallen. She could not look back up to see above the canopies that blotted out the treetops.
The forest floor was uneven, but free of all but fungal underbrush. Gnarled roots twisted everywhere, some large enough that she had to detour around them, or climb them like boulders. Juliana hoped that the clearing was as large as it appeared from the air, because she could not be certain how tightly she could hold her course.
The air was hushed. All winds stopped at heights well above her sheltered cathedral of green-roofed wood. The trunks of the elder forest stood as pillars, large around as the Tower of Contemplation. The only light present had been diffused through web after web of leaves, casting the whole of the region in a green gloom, though it was still midday.
On a whim, Juliana looked into the aether. The old oaks glowed with the fire of an Inner Circle sorcerer—if one had been stretched up into the heavens. The other species were dimmer, but not by so much as to make them any less grand.
The forest was more navigable by the aether than by the false twilight beneath the dense canopy. She walked for a time gazing in wonder until she came to a break in the trees. It was the forest clearing she had been looking for.
She switched back to the light to see what might have chosen such a place to live and gasped in shock, nearly stumbling over herself in her haste to back away. She was surrounded by bizarre human-like creatures.
"Ahh, so you choose to look upon us, rather than just through us," one of the creatures joked. A few of them shared a laugh at her expense. The creature who spoke looked like a perfect human specimen, all prominent muscles and perfectly formed features. His skin was dark as oak bark.
"Who are you?" she dared to ask.
"I think you know the answer already," a more familiar voice replied, "else you would not have come here." Juliana whirled to see Illiardra standing not two paces from her. Her immortal oathmother floated in the air to match her height with Juliana's.
"This is it? The home of the de—the immortals?" Juliana asked.
"Indeed it is. You pose us a rather unique problem, however," Illiardra replied.
"What sort of problem?"
"Let us discuss this in private," Illiardra said. She walked off and allowed Juliana to follow through the throng of curious immortals.
Illiardra's home was a dome of roots, dug out beneath one of the oaks around the clearing. It looked to be a sitting room and a collection of keepsakes, nothing more. The chairs were stone, carved—or more likely, shaped by magic—into smooth, flowing shapes, piled with cushions
. It was luxurious, despite its simplicity.
"We have two ways of dealing with visitors, typically," Illiardra said. "When mortals come here, we take them to a little village we have created for them, not far from here. They live out their lives there, unable to leave. Their numbers are few, despite occasional births; the rumors of disappearance for folk who explore too deeply are fine to keep most folk away."
"The other way?" Juliana asked, wide-eyed, knowing that Illiardra had not begun the tale describing her expected fate.
"Twinborn, we most often kill, preferably before they have learned of our nature. The bridge between worlds is too swift a messenger, word would spread."
"You haven't killed me—at least not yet. Am I one of your exceptions?" Juliana asked. Illiardra laughed, a bubbling, childlike laugh.
"My dear, you are every exception I can think of," the immortal replied. "First, you know of our kind, and know me personally. None of them would dare offer me the affront of killing an acquaintance of mine, and I could not bear to harm you. Second, you are a dangerous pawn to try moving about. The very last thing I want is for your twinborn lover to come to your rescue. I shudder to think at the damage he might wreak to have you safely back."
Juliana smiled. She knew what Kyrus was capable of. His rescue of her in Zorren was proof enough of that.
"Third," Illiardra continued, "you were sent here with purpose, and that purpose has been fulfilled, at least in part. I assume you have not sufficiently recovered from your shock to think of telling Brannis or his twin of this place?"
"I could though, at a moment's whim," Juliana said. She worried where that question led.
"Of course, but it also means I have time to convince you not to tell him," Illiardra said. "I could not wipe the memory of it from your mind, for your twin would recall it still. You twinborn are pesky creatures, you know." Illiardra winked.
"Why would I not tell him?" Juliana asked. "Kyrus thinks this is the key to destroying Rashan. I can only imagine that was why you left me that book of his prophecies—to show me his madness."
"Kyrus?" Illiardra mused. "So that is Brannis's other name, or rather, the name this new Brannis hides. And yes, that was part of the reason I gave you those books. They were a pair, to teach two sides of one lesson, and both lend their weight to another."
Juliana narrowed her eyes. "You don't want another Tallax.”
"Very much not," Illiardra agreed. "It was a darkened time for us, we creatures who hope to see the world's twilight, we friends of the departed gods, we—"
"Wait!" Juliana interrupted. "You knew the gods?"
"Why yes, quite well in fact. They did not live among us, but came and went freely. We were more enduring companions than the mortals whose lives were blinks before their eyes—and ours."
"What can you tell me about Tansha?" Juliana asked.
Illiardra smiled. "Oh my. There are so few left that still believe in them. You are a follower of Merciful Tansha?"
"Yes, my parents in Tellurak were missionaries, my mother a priestess. Tansha had answered my prayers."
"I doubt that very much. The gods left, chased off in fear of Tallax. They broke the ways between worlds to shut him up here with us. Whatever prayers you offered, they were not fulfilled by her."
"But—"
"No." Illiardra shook her head. "She said goodbye to me. She hugged me close, and apologized that she could not stay. Hers is a worthy path to follow, but you follow it on your own. In your lifetime, you always have."
Juliana stared past Illiardra. My twinborn playmate. My Brannis. Freedom from my marriage to Iridan. All coincidence?
"But let us not be off our point," Illiardra said. "Those two books carried a message that Brannis—that Kyrus—needed to see for himself. The prophecies are Rashan's journal, filled with blood and fire, treachery and paranoia. They sum him up far better than the painted civility that hides the monster beneath. I had fooled myself too many times before I saw that book. It opened my own eyes, and I hope it has opened Kyrus's as well."
"I think he already knew."
"Perhaps it is easier to see a monster in someone you have never loved," Illiardra said. "This same blindness may shadow you as well, and thus the reason for the second book. Could you even bear to give it to him?"
"I almost couldn’t, but I did," Juliana admitted.
"The story of Tallax may one day be rewritten as the story of Brannis, if he keeps to the path he walks. Tallax had the best of intentions; he created a peace that lasted hundreds of winters. Always though, it was the threat of violence that stayed war. All the while, as Tallax went off world to world in search of how we immortals overcame mortal frailty, the war-lust built. When finally Tallax went mad and destroyed himself, the world erupted in war like you have never imagined."
"I think I know Kyrus better than that," Juliana said. "Kyrus would never—"
"Tallax would never, either. But he did," Illiardra said. "Even Xizix, whose hatred and jealousy of Tallax were unmatched, did not think ill of his intentions, initially."
"What do you want of me, then?"
"To spare Kyrus from the madness that plagued Tallax, and to spare all of us, mortal and immortal alike, from another like him," Illiardra said. "To convince him that a mortal life can hold all the riches he wishes of it. To keep him from pursuing immortality for himself, the quest that drove Tallax to his ruin."
"Kyrus isn't trying to learn how to become immortal for his own ends. He is looking for a weakness in case Rashan turns on him," Juliana replied.
"There is no weakness," Illiardra said, "not in immortality, at least. Arrogance, hubris, a quickness to suspicion and to kill before considering: those are Rashan's weaknesses. The only thing Kyrus might learn is how to become just like him."
"Why would he lie to me?" Juliana asked. "He trusts me completely."
A cynical smile curled one corner of Illiardra's mouth. "Such words have been spoken more times than you can count, and nearly always the one who feels the need to speak them is quite mistaken."
Juliana's thoughts sloshed loose in her head. No. Brannis would never ... but, that would be the point, wouldn't it? That I never suspect? Juliana closed her eyes and pictured the times she had spent with Brannis as a girl, with Kyrus more recently, with Brannis as Soria. No, she decided, if I am to die a fool's death by his hands, it will be with a clear conscience. I do trust him.
"You do not have to decide right away, just refrain from telling him anything until you are sure," said Illiardra after a time in silence. "It is for his own well being."
Juliana shook herself from her stupor. "Was he right? Do you have a portal here to Tellurak? Is that how Rashan got there?"
"Yes," Illiardra said, "yes, and yes. The portal is inert, but could be reawakened. And yes, we once allowed Rashan to do so. It is a mistake we do not look to repeat. Now, I will take you back to your ship and your friend, where you might wait for your decision. If you agree to help us keep Kyrus from Tallax's path, I might see if someone here can reawaken that monstrosity of runes you brought."
* * * * * * * *
Kyrus was in the map room, waiting for Rashan upon his return. Rashan threw down the broken pieces of the Staff of Gehlen by way of greeting. He was disheveled, his clothing torn and scorched. Something felt off about his manner, returning from battle. Kyrus was used to seeing him jovial, refreshed. Instead, his eyes hung, his arms dangled.
"Had a poor time of it, did you?" Kyrus asked. His chair sat in the Cloud Wall mountains, southwest of Munne, and faced Whitefield. "There was a bit of excitement while you were away. You dumped a load of Jinzan's necromancers on the palace lawns. The Inner Circle handled them. I assume you anticipated the trap?"
"It is done," Rashan said. He shook his head. "Disappointing."
"Indeed. Raynesdark now sits atop a boiling cauldron with no hope of protecting itself. Even with the staff, who knows how long it might have been to repair the damage that was done," Kyrus replied. He let th
e warlock's thoughts wander their course.
"He was beaten. I had but to wear him down. A contest in a dry bed of aether was unwinnable for him. I ... I did everything I could, everything I needed to ... then I got careless," Rashan said. He took one of the chairs that was stored off to the west of the Storm Spire Mountains and the goblin lands, and dragged it over. He took his seat above Podawei Wood.
Kyrus watched for a time, wondering how best to broach the topic of Faolen. Given Rashan's unusual turn of mood, he decided against it entirely. His other revelation, he could barely prevent himself from gushing about. I figured out your puzzle, you clever old rascal.
"Let me send up for wine," Kyrus offered. "We can toast the new era of the Kadrin Empire, and the end of the Fourth Necromancer War." He smiled, hoping to make it infectious. Rashan looked at him a moment before nodding his assent.
"I had scarcely thought to consider it such. Those wars were the product of Loramar vengeance. I suppose, thanks to Axterion, this was as well," Rashan said.
"You might do well to consider the old man for a seat in the Inner Circle once more. You could use a cool head with a sharp tongue attached," Kyrus suggested.
"Do we have a vacancy, then?" Rashan asked. Kyrus nodded. "Was it anyone I would be saddened about?" Kyrus shook his head. "Then we can leave it for a later time. There is a wedding on the morrow, and an empire littered with corpses that still move. You shall help. There is nothing out there to truly risk ourselves against any longer—at least nothing imminently bent on our harm." Rashan tried a smile, but seemed not to find it to his liking.
Servants brought the best and oldest vintage from Emperor Sommick's cellars, one that dated back to Rashan's mortal days. They nursed the bottle for hours, filling their bellies with words more than wine. By the time Kyrus retired to bed, he wondered if perhaps his future in the empire might be something other than the bleak march toward confrontation with Rashan that Dolvaen had predicted.
Chapter 33 - An Age-Day to Remember
The songbirds heralded the morning, though what portent their songs held was beyond understanding for the waking travelers. Neither Brannis, nor Soria, Tomas Abbiley, even erudite Rakashi, held any knowledge of bird omens. There had been a finality about their battle with Lady Skaal's mercenaries that gave the group a sense of ease in the aftermath. It was a road-weary, blood-spattered, aching sort of ease, but an ease nonetheless.